Strange Behavior
by Rick Peterson
Summary: Following events in Batman #600, Oracle and Nightwing try to discover who killed Vesper Fairchild. Some revisions to final chapter.
1. Chapter 1

Strange Behavior – Chapter One  
  
This is my response to Batman #600 – the start of the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive story line. I am rushing the writing of this story to get it out before it becomes completely out of date. That's my excuse for any errors! It is already somewhat outdated by Birds of Prey #41. I think that's why the Black Canary forced her way into this story. She wasn't in my original plot concept, but she isn't a lady I care to argue with.  
  
All characters in this story are copyright DC Comics and I have used them without permission. I am making no money from this story.  
  
  
  
The Clock Tower  
  
10:25 PM  
  
  
  
"How can he do this? Give up being Bruce Wayne! Is he crazy? Of course, he's crazy! 'Bruce Wayne is a mask I wear, but it's become a liability so it's over.' What a crock! Is he going to wear the costume to bed? Wear it while he brushes his teeth so he won't see Bruce Wayne's face looking back at him in a mirror? How can he even think of doing this?"  
  
Barbara Gordon pushed up her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if that could stem the incipient headache. Dick Grayson, in full Nightwing garb, paced back and forth around her wheel chair. This had been the constant refrain since he had returned from the Batcave. She had been sympathetic for the first twenty repetitions, but now her sympathy was wearing thin.  
  
Robin -- no one bothered pretending any longer that she didn't know he was Tim Drake – had returned to Brentwood, his boarding school, primarily (she was sure) to escape Dick's tirade. Cassie (Batgirl) had disappeared without anyone noticing. Barbara's status board showed she was out on patrol. She was probably taking her unhappiness out on any crook unlucky enough to cross her path.  
  
"I don't know how he could do it, Dick," she replied as patiently as she could manage.  
  
"I can't believe he would do this!"  
  
"Well, he did!" Barbara exploded. "Instead of bemoaning that fact, let's deal with it."  
  
Dick Grayson snorted. "And how are we supposed to do that?"  
  
Barbara wasn't sure, but anything was more productive than this. "Well," she temporized, "we need to start by recognizing that, ever since my father was shot, Bruce has been acting increasingly…" She hesitated, trying to find a more diplomatic word than 'unstable' or 'weird'.  
  
"He didn't do it!" Dick shouted. "He did NOT murder Vesper Fairchild!"  
  
"Fine!" Barbara yelled back. "He didn't do it! That still leaves us with Vesper's computer hard drive to explain. Someone went thru it and erased every mention that Bruce is Batman, and did it so well that the police didn't notice anything. If Bruce didn't do that, who did?"  
  
Dick just glared at her.  
  
"Stop emoting and start detecting, former boy wonder! If Bruce didn't do it, then what does that mean?"  
  
"He was set up!"  
  
"Wonderful deduction, Captain Obvious! Anyone could tell you were trained by the World's Greatest Detective!"  
  
"What do you want from me?" Dick shouted. "We've been working on this for over a week without getting anywhere. And you expect me to pull a Sherlock?"  
  
"But now we have more to work with," Barbara said quietly. Dick stopped and stared at her. "Bruce may have been acting strangely before, but tonight's performance was the strangest yet. By far."  
  
Dick's face mirrored his concern and guilt. He hadn't spent much time with Bruce in recent years, Barbara thought, and now he is feeling guilty about it. As if his presence could have prevented any of this.  
  
"You really think he's crazy?" he asked so softly she had to strain to hear it.  
  
"That … isn't the only possibility."  
  
"Mind control?" Barbara could see him weigh the possibilities. Finally, she thought, I've got him thinking rather than reacting. She could see him replay tonight's events in his memory.  
  
"Not mind control like the Mad Hatter," she said slowly, "but maybe something more subtle."  
  
It was fascinating, she thought. Previously, he couldn't keep still. He had paced around the room, waving his hands wildly. Now he could be a statue.  
  
"Babs", his quiet voice startled her out of her reverie. "Do you remember what he said when you told him Vesper knew he was Batman?"  
  
"Sure." Having a photographic memory, she could hardly forget. "He said, 'That's not true.'"  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"So he didn't know." Removing his best reason for wanting her dead, if you believed him.  
  
"Babs," said Dick patiently. "He said it's not true."  
  
"So?" She couldn't see what he was getting at.  
  
"He knew she was investigating the Batman. He broke up with her to avoid the chance he might give himself away. Don't you think he would have kept tabs on her? Had a whole scheme of disinformation in place in case she got lucky?"  
  
"Of course he would," Barbara responded. "He's the Batman. He has a plan for everything." Except he hadn't had a plan for his former girlfriend being murdered in his house. "But then…"  
  
"Maybe she didn't know he was the Batman. Maybe we are just supposed to think she did. Not the police. What's the point in erasing the notes if you want the police to see them? Just us, just Batman's closest allies. The people who would never stop working to clear him, unless we thought he was guilty. He wanted to destroy Bruce Wayne, to destroy the trust and belief in him of the people around him, but he didn't want to reveal he was Batman."  
  
"Dick, isn't that reaching? It took me hours of work to recover those notes. How could he know I'd manage it? For that matter, how could he be sure the police wouldn't?"  
  
Dick waved this away. "There are few people as good with computers as you are, Babs. I doubt the GCPD has access to an expert of your caliber. Besides, why would they even look? They have their perp and an airtight case; they're not thinking about a possible frame.  
  
"It would mean the killer knew Bruce was the Batman, but we already guessed that. He would also have to know us well enough to know we would find what he planted."  
  
Barbara shivered at the thought.  
  
"The very difficulty of finding the information would make it more convincing, more damning. He intended to turn us against Bruce, to isolate him psychologically, cut him off from all his friends and family."  
  
"But Dick…"  
  
"Think of the agony of finding Vesper dead in his house, Babs, of being arrested for her murder, locked up and unable to do anything to help himself or protect his city. Then add on top of it the pain of finding that his closest friends believed him guilty. That's what the murderer wanted to do to Bruce. It wasn't enough to neutralize the Batman or kill him. He wanted to completely destroy him. Yet he wanted to preserve the secret of Batman's identity.  
  
"It would have to be someone who knew Bruce was Batman; more, who knows what makes him tick and is ruthless enough to exploit the knowledge. Someone who prefers subtle psychological mind games to direct physical action. Someone who is patient enough to spend months or years setting this up. Yet he protects the Batman's secrets. Why? With Bruce in prison or … dead … there would be no Batman. Unless…"  
  
They turned to each other and saw the dawning realization in the other's eyes. Simultaneously, they shouted:  
  
"Hugo Strange!"  
  
"We know he wants to be the Batman; he dresses up in Batman's costume 'to tap the totemic power of the archetype.'"  
  
"He held Bruce captive not long before your father was shot."  
  
"And he drugged him. He could have planted a post-hypnotic suggestion as well. All he would have to do is reinforce Bruce's deep-rooted fear that everybody who gets close to him dies. Bruce's subconscious would do the rest: forcing everyone away to protect them."  
  
"Bruce used self-hypnosis to forget he was Batman, in order to convince Hugo that he wasn't. That might have left him unusually suggestible."  
  
"But he has been in Arkham ever since." Barbara quickly pulled Arkham Asylum records. "According to this, he's still there."  
  
"Wanna bet?"  
  
"Given Arkham's past performance, are you kidding?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Arkham Asylum  
  
11:45 PM  
  
  
  
Nightwing moved silently down the corridor to Hugo Strange's cell. He paused outside, alert to any sound. He had 20 minutes before the night watch man was next due. Plenty of time. It took less than a minute to pick the lock and enter. He quietly closed the door behind him. The cells were soundproof: a necessity for a place that regularly housed the Joker. No one was going to hear what happened in here, except Oracle.  
  
Nightwing's flashlight swept the cell, then steadied on a figure huddled in the corner. He was not asleep; instead he was rocking back and forth, moaning: "I killed Batman, I am Batman, I killed Batman, I am Batman." Over and over again. He looked like Hugo Strange. He sounded like Hugo Strange. Nightwing suppressed a stab of disappointment and crouched next to the rocking figure.  
  
"Hugo, Hugo." The figure kept rocking and repeating his litany.  
  
Nightwing slapped him lightly and the man's eyes focused on him, then bulged out in recognition.  
  
1 "No! Stay away! This is my house, don't make me leave!"  
  
"Verbatim from his transcripts," Barbara muttered into Nightwing's ear via com link. "It hasn't changed since he got here."  
  
"Maybe," Nightwing responded quietly, lifting the man's glasses off his head and looking thru them, "but this isn't Hugo Strange."  
  
He could hear Barbara's sudden intake of breath.  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Hugo is extremely near sighted. His glasses are like Coke bottles. This guy is only mildly near-sighted.  
  
"Also, I think…", he grabbed a handful of beard and yanked. "Yes! The beard is fake. I doubt Hugo Strange was ever here."  
  
"You'd lose that bet, twenty-something wonder. He visits once a week like clockwork."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Guess who this poor slob's psychiatrist is."  
  
"Herr Doktor Fledermaus, perhaps?"  
  
Barbara chortled. "Not quite. Doctor Wayne Thompson." Thompson, Tom's son. Thomas Wayne's son: Bruce.  
  
"That's our Hugo: bold as brass and too clever for his own good. When is he due back?"  
  
"It appears he is on vacation at present. He isn't due back for another two weeks."  
  
"How surprising." Nightwing put the glasses back on the man.  
  
"So where to now, Short Pants?"  
  
"Blackgate. I need to talk to Bruce's former bodyguard."  
  
  
  
  
  
En route to Blackgate Prison  
  
12:35 AM  
  
  
  
"Good thing Bruce keeps a boat handy under an assumed name."  
  
"What can I say? He could give the Boy Scouts lessons in being prepared."  
  
"I've already spoken with Sasha Bordeaux. She's not talking. Period."  
  
"She's got to talk now. Strange couldn't have accomplished all this with a post-hypnotic suggestion. He must have had further access to Bruce to work on him, most likely at Wayne Manor. We know Hugo got in and out of there unobserved the night he killed Vesper. As his bodyguard, Sasha was constantly around Bruce the past year. She had to have seen something useful.  
  
"You said she knows Bruce is Batman?"  
  
"She didn't give anything away but, yes, I'm positive she knows."  
  
"Good. That simplifies things."  
  
"Something occurs to me, Dick. Last time, Hugo Strange got to Bruce thru Wayne Enterprises. He was 'psychologically evaluating' all the top executives, including the CEO, Lucius Fox."  
  
"Lucius was young to have a stroke, wasn't he? And no risk factors: he didn't smoke, he kept himself in shape."  
  
"I'm checking … no family history of strokes, either."  
  
"And Bruce depended upon him."  
  
"More than that. He was a friend. Bruce doesn't have many of those left."  
  
"There are drugs that can simulate a stroke."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"When does Lucius get out of the hospital?"  
  
"Still no word on that."  
  
"When I get my hands on Strange…"  
  
"Yes." 


	2. Chapter 2

Strange Behavior – Chapter Two  
  
All characters in this story are copyright DC Comics and I have used them without permission. I am making no money from this story.  
  
  
  
  
  
Blackgate Prison  
  
1:20 AM  
  
"Sasha," Dick whispered.  
  
She wasn't sleeping; she wasn't even in bed. She was curled up in a corner. At least she wasn't rocking back and forth and moaning. She looked up at him and Dick could see the tear tracks down her face.  
  
"Sasha, I need your help."  
  
She closed her eyes.  
  
"Sasha, we know you were framed. We even know who did it. But we can't prove anything yet. Please help us."  
  
"You're Nightwing," she stated. Her voice was flat and devoid of emotion. Nightwing nodded.  
  
"You work with Him." Nightwing nodded again.  
  
"He was here tonight. He stood right where you're standing." Nightwing repressed an urge to move.  
  
"He told me he was abandoning the Bruce Wayne identity. That's what he called it: the Bruce Wayne identity. As if it were a disguise he was shedding, or an old shirt with a hole in it."  
  
Nightwing stifled any comment and waited. After a long moment, she continued.  
  
"He offered me three choices. He could break me out of here, tonight if I wanted. He would set me up with a new identity and all the money I needed. He could even arrange things so I could work again. Not here, of course, but somewhere in Europe. I would have to wear a disguise all the time, so I wouldn't be recognized, but I could work if I wanted. But my name would never be cleared.  
  
"Or I could make a deal with the DA. Tell them the truth: he got home before me and I found him next to the body. He asked me not to mention his other identity. He didn't order or demand, he asked. He said others' lives depended upon it."  
  
She looked at Nightwing again. "He didn't ask for himself, he wanted to protect you and the others."  
  
Dick had nothing to say to that.  
  
"Or, he said, he would get me the best possible legal team. They might be able to convince a jury I wasn't guilty. If that went south, well there was still option one."  
  
"What did you say?" asked Nightwing gently.  
  
"I told him I would think about it." Suddenly, she started sobbing.  
  
"Sasha, I think we can end this nightmare. Get you out of here and give him back his life as Bruce Wayne. But we need your help. Please, Sasha."  
  
The sobbing grew quieter. "What do you want to know?"  
  
"We think we know who is behind this. His name is Hugo Strange; he's a psychiatrist. He's been manipulating Bruce, preying on his fears and causing him to push away everybody who cares for him. To him, killing Vesper was just another way to undermine Bruce and drive him further into isolation."  
  
She shuddered. "Does he know that Bruce is…"  
  
"Yes. We need to know how he's been getting at Bruce. Anything that you can tell us, Sasha."  
  
"He's been getting more tense, more distant." She laughed hysterically, but choked it off almost immediately. "Even more distant than he was. It's been getting worse for months. He hardly even talks now. I can feel the anger inside him.  
  
"I got him to celebrate Christmas."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Sorry, I'm rambling."  
  
"No, please tell me."  
  
"I put up a tree and even got him to stop for a few hours and watch Christmas movies with me. It seemed to help. He had been so tense. Ever since he drove Vesper away and then Lucius had his stroke. It has been getting worse for months, but that's when it really got bad. He started spending more time at work. He always came back even grimmer than when he left. I know he really missed Lucius.  
  
"I don't suppose Batman could go see a psychiatrist, but he really needed someone he could talk to. I caught him talking to himself a couple of times. Not a good sign, is it?"  
  
"Where, Sasha? Where was he talking to himself?"  
  
She stared at him, not comprehending. "In the cave, I caught him talking to himself in the cave. Well, he might have been talking to Jason Todd."  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
She gave him a funny look. "You know that Robin uniform in the display box? With the plaque that says…"  
  
"I KNOW what the plaque says!" snapped Nightwing.  
  
"Dick, calm down. She doesn't know."  
  
No, thought Dick, she couldn't know. "I'm sorry, Sasha. Please go on."  
  
"You going to tell me who Jason Todd was? He snapped my head off when I asked."  
  
"He would. Jason was the second Robin. The Joker… beat him to death with a tire iron."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Exactly. Bruce put up that display box to torture himself about it."  
  
There was silence for a long time after that. Then Sasha shook herself and continued.  
  
"Well, he was standing in front of that display so I thought maybe… well some people talk to their reflection in the mirror. They just usually don't use two different voices."  
  
"I don't understand," Nightwing replied, afraid that he did.  
  
"He said something in his 'Bruce Wayne' voice. You know?"  
  
"I know."  
  
"Then he answered in his 'Batman' voice, only it was even deeper and more gravely than usual. Sort of like the Bat from Hell."  
  
"Yes, that's just the sort of voice Hugo would use. He'd know Bruce couldn't stay away from that case. If he projected the image at just the right angle, you wouldn't see anything unless you were directly in front of the case. I'll bet he has projectors and hidden speakers all thru the Cave."  
  
"Some bodyguard I turned out to be."  
  
"Sasha, you couldn't know. If we're right about the timing, he probably had everything in place before you ever saw the inside of the Cave."  
  
"He wouldn't accept that excuse."  
  
"Boy, she's got it bad," Babs murmured.  
  
"Yeah, and if he jumped off a building, would you do it too?"  
  
That actually got a grin out of her. She chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I would."  
  
"Me too. But just because he beats himself up over things he couldn't have prevented is no reason you should."  
  
"I guess not. But I have to tell you the rest of it. I couldn't hear what he said in his 'Bruce Wayne' voice but I did hear what he said, or I guess what this Hugo character said, in the 'Batman' voice." She stopped and looked down at her hands. Then she looked back up at him.  
  
"He said, 'Maybe they left because they sensed your weakness.'"  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Yeah." She stirred. "I KNEW something was wrong. I should have told somebody."  
  
"Do I have to repeat my little sermon?"  
  
She shook her head.  
  
"You said you caught him talking to himself twice. What was the other time?"  
  
"It was at Christmas. When I went down to give him his present, I heard him say, 'Who moved that test tube?' I didn't think anything about it at the time. Now, though… I know I didn't move any test tube."  
  
Dick felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn't gotten Bruce a Christmas present. Of course, Bruce had made it clear he didn't want any presents, but still…  
  
"What did you get him?"  
  
She looked at him strangely. "You know that fire in his office about a year ago?"  
  
He nodded. That had occurred during the last encounter with Hugo Strange.  
  
"He mentioned he lost a favorite photo in the fire."  
  
Dick felt a shock go thru him. He knew that photo.  
  
"It was a picture of the two of you. At least, I assume the boy was you."  
  
Dick nodded.  
  
"I know the loss bothered him, so I found the negative and had a copy made and framed. I think he was touched. I never saw him so happy."  
  
Dick closed his eyes. He heard Babs whisper "Oh, Dick," but he had to stay focused.  
  
"Anything else out of the ordinary?"  
  
"What's ordinary for him?"  
  
Dick nodded, conceding the point.  
  
"There was the disgruntled employee who pulled a gun on him, but I don't think you mean that sort of thing." She thought about it.  
  
"When I told him about Lucius Fox's stroke, it's like he didn't hear me even though I was walking right next to him. When we got home, he wondered why all the reporters were there and I had to tell him all over again." She shrugged. "I can't think of anything else."  
  
"Thank you, Sasha. One last thing. When Vesper was killed, did you see anything that might help? Upstairs or down. The killer may have come in thru the Cave."  
  
"No. I've thought about it a lot and, no. Bruce got home before me. He showered and changed and was at the computers when I got there. I suppose the noise of the shower could have covered the sound of an intruder, but it seems awfully risky."  
  
Nightwing nodded. "We'll get you out of here soon, Sasha, legally and with your name cleared."  
  
She put out her hand and he reached in and grasped it. "Help him. He won't admit it, even to himself, but he needs you."  
  
Nightwing let himself out onto the roof of the prison. He walked to the edge, looked out over the breaking surf below, spread his arms and jumped. At the last possible moment, he launched his jump line. It caught a cornice and he swung out into space. A flick of the wrist and the line snapped free of the cornice. He moved smoothly into a double forward somersault and landed in the boat. A moment later, the boat was accelerating away from Blackgate prison.  
  
  
  
  
  
En route to the Batcave  
  
2:30 AM  
  
  
  
"He got into the Cave, Babs. How did he do that? He didn't know how last time."  
  
"I don't know, Dick, and that worries me. If he has access to the Cave, then he has access to all of our secrets."  
  
"So he has all of our secrets. He can move in and out of the Cave and the Manor undetected. We know he killed Vesper, but we don't have a shred of evidence that will stand up in court. That about sum it up?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Babs?"  
  
"Wait a minute."  
  
A bolt of lightning illuminated the horizon, followed by a clap of thunder. It started to rain.  
  
"Dick, the Batcave went off line about two minutes ago. I can't access the computers, the security systems, anything. Alfred's tracer placed him in the Batcave but it's gone dead. I've tried everything I can think of, but I can't reach him."  
  
"You put a tracer on him?"  
  
"Under the circumstances, I thought it was a good idea."  
  
"Under the circumstances, you were right. I'm coming up on the docks right now. ETA to the Cave, less than twenty minutes."  
  
"I'm calling in Batgirl and Robin. This smells like a trap."  
  
"Gee, you think?"  
  
The rain came down harder. 


	3. Chapter 3

Strange Behavior – Chapter Three  
  
All characters in this story are copyright DC Comics and I have used them without permission. I am making no money from this story.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Clock Tower  
  
2:40 AM  
  
"Don't worry about it, Tim. I'm sure Nightwing and Batgirl can handle it. The last thing you need is to be caught sneaking out after curfew. In any case, everything will probably be long over by the time you could get here. And, just in case, I'll call Batman."  
  
Tim snorted. "Good luck."  
  
"This is Alfred," Barbara replied brightly. "Of course, he'll come."  
  
"He probably tossed his com link."  
  
That possibility had occurred to her. "I'll get ahold of him. I'm Oracle, remember? I can do anything."  
  
"Well, let me know how it goes," Tim asked. He sounded worried, dejected and tired.  
  
"Will do. Oracle out."  
  
Barbara chewed on a fingernail and wondered. Would he come? Surely, things had not reached that point, yet. Damn! That was another ruined nail.  
  
"Hey, girlfriend! How's it going?"  
  
"I'm very busy right now, Dinah. We've got an emergency."  
  
"What can I do?" asked Black Canary in a no-nonsense tone.  
  
"I have Nightwing and Batgirl on it," Barbara backpedaled. "That should be enough." Although why I'm bothering to protect Bruce's ID at this point, I don't know, she thought bitterly.  
  
"Where's Batman? I thought he'd be back in action by now."  
  
Very tactful, Barbara thought. Since Bruce Wayne is out of jail, Batman should be back in action. Not that we ever said he was out of action, but of course she noticed.  
  
"I was just about to call him," Barbara told her firmly.  
  
"And this is one of those Batclan only affairs, so I can't help out."  
  
I'm tired of dissembling, Barbara thought. She deserves better.  
  
"Someone seems to be going after friends of the Batman," she told Dinah.  
  
"Short list," Dinah sniggered. Barbara laughed at that. It felt good to laugh.  
  
"Who's covering you?"  
  
"Dinah, I am NOT helpless. Besides, I have better security than the JLA Watchtower."  
  
"Considering how often they have to rebuild, that's not saying much."  
  
"Dinah," warned Barbara, getting irritated.  
  
"This is something I can do without compromising Batman's oh-so-secret ID. I'm heading over right now."  
  
"Dinah," but the line was dead. Black Canary was not going to be overruled on this. Barbara decided to be amused rather than angry. It looked to be a long night and it would go faster with company.  
  
She had put off calling Batman too long. She activated his com channel. No response. She tapped in the emergency code. Still no response. Could he really have ditched his com link? Damn him!  
  
"Batman, come in." Okay, she'd do this the hard way. She left the com channel open and started talking. Sooner or later, if he were listening, he had to answer, if only to shut her up.  
  
"Batman, we've got an emergency. The Batcave went off line and Alfred isn't responding. Nightwing and Batgirl are en route. Nightwing should be almost there. If it's a trap, they may need back up. Batman, please respond."  
  
A proximity alarm went off. It was the balcony. She pulled up the appropriate VidCam image and saw a familiar silhouette. She hurriedly turned off the balcony alarm and released the locks on the balcony door.  
  
"Batman… Damn it, this would go a lot faster if you had kept your com link." Still, she was glad to see him. She had faith in Nightwing and wasn't REALLY worried, but still… with Batman backing him up, she knew nothing would happen to him.  
  
She spun her wheelchair around and rolled into the darkened living room.  
  
"Batman, thank goodness you're here…"  
  
She stopped suddenly. Something was wrong.  
  
She reached for the light switch with her right hand as her left reached under her chair for one of her escrima sticks. In that moment a flash of lightning illuminated the room and she looked up into the leering face of Hugo Strange.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Batcave  
  
2:50 AM  
  
  
  
Nightwing came in thru a little used entrance on the grounds well away from the Manor. The Batcave was pitch black except for one spotlight on the chair in front of the computers, the one he and Tim laughingly called "the throne". It had been pushed back from the computers and was easily visible from most of the Cave. A figure sat motionless in the chair and Nightwing could see the cape and cowl.  
  
Somehow, he didn't think it was Batman sitting there. It could be Hugo Strange – Dick vividly recalled his tendency to dress up as Batman – but mostly likely it was a dummy intended to lure them into a trap. He was worried about Alfred, but he knew better than to rush into things. He could still remember Batman's words, so often repeated to him when he was younger: "Assess the situation, make your preparations, then act. Haste puts you and civilians at risk." Bruce wasn't the only one hearing voices, he thought ruefully.  
  
Nightwing turned his head away from the bright light and dialed up the light amplification on his lenses. The Cave sprang into view around him. He leaped up to one of the reinforcing beams that crisscrossed the Cave – protection against another earthquake – and pulled himself on top of it. From there he quickly and quietly worked his way to a spot above and behind the computers. He was careful to keep his eyes turned away from the spotlight. At the present amplification, the bright light would blind him. Similarly, he kept his mind away from the memories of the confrontation here just hours ago, which could blind him in a different way.  
  
Once he was in position, he dialed down the amplification on his lenses and looked again at the figure, this time from the front. The cape was draped around the figure, completely encircling it, with only the tips of highly polished black shoes showing beneath it. The head drooped forward, suggesting the figure was sleeping or unconscious, and probably tied into the chair. It also made it hard to see the face, but the pencil thin mustache and high cheekbones were unmistakable. It was Alfred.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Clock Tower  
  
2:50 AM  
  
  
  
Barbara brought up her escrima stick, but too late to completely redirect the powerful side kick aimed at her chest. It connected with her shoulder instead, and her right arm went numb. She had not had time to set the brakes and the blow pushed her chair back and spun it around sideways.  
  
She twisted her torso and brought her arm around to try to block the spin kick she knew was coming. The angle was awkward and she couldn't get much force behind it. It was enough to cause the kick to miss her body, hitting the chair back instead. The force of the blow toppled the wheelchair, dumping her headfirst into the wall.  
  
She saw stars, but immediately pushed the wheelchair away from her and into her opponent's path. She heard him stumble over the chair, but he didn't fall. Her right arm useless, she had to drop the escrima stick in her left hand in order to push herself up into a sitting position with her back to the wall. She reached for the dropped stick in the dark. Her fingers found it as lightning flashed again, outlining the dark form in front of her. She grabbed the escrima stick and tried to bring it up, too late to stop the boot that smashed into her solar plexus. She toppled, gasping for breath as the next kick slammed into her stomach.  
  
She didn't quite lose consciousness, but she couldn't seem to make her body work. Hugo Strange rolled her onto her stomach and duct taped her arms together. She gave a half-strangled gasp and finally got some air into her lungs as he rolled her onto her back.  
  
"Tyndale," she wheezed.  
  
"Ah, ah, ah," he crooned as the duct tape went over her mouth. "I'm sure you have all sorts of defenses, including voice-activated ones, in an attempt to disguise your fear of attack, most of all from yourself. They didn't do you much good, did they?"  
  
He grabbed her hair and dragged her into the computer room. Barbara blinked the tears out of her eyes and saw him looking around the room.  
  
"The lair of the famous Oracle. How easily it is taken. I knew it would be. Your childhood infatuation with the Batman and your need to believe him omniscient and omnipotent made it inevitable that, in a crisis, you would respond emotionally to the sight of his costume."  
  
Barbara felt herself flush. She had had a crush on the Batman, once, many years ago. She didn't think it still affected her judgement, but she remembered her reaction when she believed the Batman had arrived. She remembered how often she or Dick had said, "He's the Batman, he knows everything / can do anything."  
  
If she were Nightwing or Black Canary, she would have a knife hidden on her that she could use to cut her bindings. But she wasn't a field agent any more. She had some throwing stars hidden under her wheelchair, but that was out in the living room. She had a jagged spot on the nail she had been chewing earlier. Maybe she could saw thru the duct tape with that. It didn't sound promising, but she didn't have a better idea.  
  
Hugo Strange was looking at the monitor board now.  
  
"This is clear enough. The map shows the location of the various operatives. I see that the boy is back at his boarding school. Nightwing and Batgirl are approaching the Batcave. Good, good."  
  
"No marker for the Batman, of course. He would never allow a flunky to track his movements. But, what is this? Another marker. Who is this for? Black Canary. What has she to do with the Batman?" He turned and glared at Barbara for this trespass. He turned back to the board.  
  
"She appears to be headed in this direction. Well, no matter. My business should be completed before she arrives and, if not, I will simply use your security system against her."  
  
He smiled and stepped to a – Barbara realized with a sinking feeling – too well labeled panel and turned on the downstairs defenses. Then he crouched down next to her and leered. His breath stank. Barbara glared back at him.  
  
"Do you know," he said conversationally, "you remind me of Vesper. She was brave too, at first."  
  
He reached out his hands – they were big hands, Barbara noted, strangler's hands – and lightly encircled her neck. Barbara refused to flinch or look away.  
  
"It didn't last, of course." He tightened his grip. Barbara held herself deathly still. This was too close to her worst nightmare, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her afraid.  
  
He smiled his ghoul's grin and his hands slipped down to the top button on her blouse. He began to unbutton it.  
  
Barbara flinched. She couldn't help herself.  
  
Hugo Strange laughed and stood up. "Terror is an exhausting emotion. If unrelieved it eventually degenerates into an apathetic despair." He looked at her legs and his smile deepened. "But, you know that, don't you? To be maintained, the terror must be tempered by a modicum of hope. You hope that I will talk too much and your friend will arrive in time to save you.  
  
"Vesper's hope was that Wayne would return and rescue her. Can you believe it? Even without knowing the truth, she saw him as her savior. I encouraged it, of course, to conserve her energy for her final performance.  
  
"When I let her escape and reach the telephone, she really thought she would live after all. Until I showed her the gun. Then she knew she was going to die. Her terror was all I could have wished.  
  
"The difficult part was to choose the most artistic moment to kill her. Too soon and I would fail to draw the greatest possible pathos from the moment. Wait too long and her pleas and sobs would become repetitious and boring.  
  
"Did you listen to her call for help? An emergency call from Wayne Manor, of course you did. Your computers would be certain to flag the call. Tell me, when you heard the shots, did it feel as if the bullets were striking your flesh instead of Vesper's?"  
  
Barbara tried not to react, but something of her feelings must have shown, for he laughed. Barbara's anger ignited at this. This sicko got off on terrorizing people. Well, he would get no more cheap thrills from her.  
  
"You use anger to keep your fear at bay. Good, good. But," he turned to the monitor board, "it is time for the next scene in my little drama. I see both Nightwing and Batgirl are inside the Batcave now."  
  
He pulled an object resembling a small cell phone from his utility belt. He extended its antenna and pressed a button.  
  
"That seals the Batcave. Your friends cannot get out now." He pressed a second button.  
  
"That starts the holographic projector." He pressed a third button.  
  
"That initiates the self-destruct sequence. In six minutes your friends and the Batcave will cease to exist." Hugo Strange smiled gleefully.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Batcave  
  
2:55 AM  
  
  
  
A movement caught Nightwing's eye. He shifted his gaze and saw Batgirl silently approaching. In a swift exchange of sign language Batgirl indicated she had just arrived and Nightwing brought her up to date on the situation. He was just beginning to outline his plan, when he heard a loud clang! as a heavy steel door dropped across the top of the stairs to the Manor. A deeper crash! told him the tunnel leading out to the road was sealed. The Batcave was in full emergency lockdown mode. He knew that every entrance to the Cave was now blocked by barriers impervious even to a bazooka.  
  
Suddenly, a ghost-like image of Hugo Strange, dressed in a Batman costume with the cowl thrown back, appeared in mid-air over the center of the cave.  
  
"Greetings." The phantom Hugo Strange smiled. "I thought you would like to know that I have just activated the self-destruct sequence for the Batcave. In six minutes, all of this," with a sweep of his arm, he indicated the Cave, "will be just a memory." His smile broadened. "Have a nice day." The image blinked out.  
  
Nightwing shouted to Batgirl, "The manual shut-off!" as he jumped down to the Cave floor. He hit the ground and rolled, coming up next to Alfred. He ripped the cape and cowl off of him and started slicing thru the duct tape holding him in the chair. He scooped Alfred up in his arms as Batgirl came out of the alcove holding the manual shut-off for the self-destruct system.  
  
"Broken!" she shouted. Dick was not surprised. Hugo would hardly overlook something so obvious. He grinned at Cassandra.  
  
"To the spare batmobile, Batgirl!" 


	4. Chapter 4

Strange Behavior – Chapter Four  
  
Author's notes: Hugo's speech at the start of this chapter is paraphrased from Gotham Knights # 8 & 11. You don't think I came up with anything that strange on my own, did you? The Batman trained the first Batgirl in Legends of the DC Universe #10 & 11. Unfortunately, he didn't say any of the things I have attributed to him, but I'm sure that's just an oversight by the writer!  
  
All characters in this story are copyright DC Comics and I have used them without permission. I am making no money from this story.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Clock Tower  
  
2:57 AM  
  
  
  
Barbara struggled against her bonds. All she accomplished was to flop around like a stranded fish. Hugo Strange was too full of his triumph to even notice.  
  
"I'm doing the Batman a favor, really. These hangers-on are parasites, siphoning off his power. He won't see it that way, of course. He will be so enraged by their deaths that it will be easy to lure him into a trap. Then I will BE the Batman. The full potency of the archetypal power will be MINE, and MINE ALONE."  
  
He is insane, Barbara thought. Unfortunately, that didn't make the people he killed any less dead. She abandoned her struggle against her bonds and went back to sawing on them with her fingernail. It was, she hoped, slightly less futile.  
  
"Just a little over five minutes, now, and their markers will disappear off your monitor forever."  
  
Dinah, she thought despairingly, where are you?  
  
"I have been preparing for this, you know: building up my body, studying kickboxing and karate. But most of all, practicing swinging on a jump line." He paced around the room, Barbara forgotten for the moment. "The terror of anticipation followed by the exhilaration of flying thru he air!" He stopped and looked at her. "How you must miss it."  
  
She did, of course, but she thought instead of flying with Dick on the trapeze. It had almost been the same.  
  
"Or does your boyfriend carry you?"  
  
Involuntarily, she remembered how Dick had to carry her up to the trapeze platform. Stop it, she thought. Don't let him slime your memories. She looked up at him and saw the triumphant gleam in Hugo Strange's eyes. He's playing me, she knew, and when he's thru having his fun, he's going to kill me.  
  
"Failure is not an option." She heard his voice so clearly in her head, she almost looked around for the Batman. That was the first thing he had taught her. The second thing...  
  
"The only person who can truly defeat you is you." She had laughed and called him Yoda, she remembered. He had ignored the taunt and continued.  
  
"Most of our opponents will defeat themselves. They will tell us how to take them down, if we pay attention." Barbara smiled. Thank you, Bruce.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Batcave  
  
2:58 AM  
  
  
  
Nightwing shook his head to clear it. The sudden pain convinced him that wasn't such a good idea. The safety harness had protected him from an impact that would have been fatal in any ordinary car, but he would be black and blue for days. No matter. He looked around. Of the many batmobiles Bruce had built, this had always been his favorite, even if it did maneuver like a tank. That was because it was built like one, with a heavy-duty chassis, thick armor plating and a bat-tering ram on the front. How annoyed Bruce had been when he made that pun! It had been a great disappointment that he had never gotten a chance to use the battering ram. Until now.  
  
The solid steel barrier sealing the exit tunnel was much the worse for the collision, he saw. It had been dished outwards by almost a foot in the middle, leaving a gap of several inches at the bottom. One or two more such impacts and it would give way entirely. Dick grinned excitedly. He put the gearshift into reverse and pressed down on the gas pedal.  
  
The batmobile didn't move. Instead, there was a horrible grinding sound, then the engine died. Dick's grin died as well.  
  
"Uh oh."  
  
  
  
  
  
The Clock Tower  
  
2:59 AM  
  
  
  
She had been letting Hugo dictate the terms, Barbara thought. That stopped now. From now on they were playing by her rules. Hugo didn't know that yet, but he would.  
  
Physically he had all the advantages and mentally they were well matched. But he had shown her his weakness. He was putting too much effort into tearing down her self-esteem when he had more important things to focus on. Why? Because he had to. Because he could only hide his own weaknesses, his own fears, by exposing the fears and weaknesses of others. He was good at finding other people's weaknesses because they were his weaknesses as well. I can't believe I let you get to me, Hugo, but that stops now.  
  
Dick would escape this trap as he had so many others. She had to believe that, so she did. As for Bruce, she refused to believe that he would allow someone like Hugo Strange to destroy him. You taught me all I need to defeat him, Bruce. Now remember for yourself. As for her, all he could do was kill her. She had faced death too many times to fear it now. She had a far more potent weapon.  
  
"You are wondering, I know, how I was able to penetrate the Batman's secrets so completely. I admit I could not have done so without my accomplice. Of course, Pennyworth did not realize he was helping his master's greatest enemy. Drugs and hypnotism can accomplish much, but it is always easiest to work with your patient's desires and he so desired someone to confide in. All I had to do was convince him I was that confidant and he happily told me all of his master's secrets.  
  
"You will understand, my dear, how it piqued my curiosity when he called me 'Miss Barbara'."  
  
Hugo turned towards her and a tiny frown briefly troubled his brow. Did you think that would upset me, Barbara asked silently? You are too contemptible to upset me. Try again.  
  
Hugo shook his head slightly, then continued.  
  
"Who was this woman entrusted with the Batman's secrets? I had not, I confess, previously suspected your existence. Once I learned more about you, I immediately saw your value to him.  
  
"I gathered all the information I needed. Then it was time to proceed to the next step. The manservant worried that he was abetting his master's 'asocial behavior'. It was easy to feed that fear, so that when I had your father shot…"  
  
"That startled you, didn't it?" He looked at her and stopped. In some corner of her mind, Barbara raged. But she had found her center and even rage could not disturb it. She stared back at him contemptuously. You are nothing, Hugo, a vacuum the universe cannot be bothered to fill. See your insignificance reflected in my eyes.  
  
A sheen of sweat appeared on Hugo's forehead. He continued. "You are thinking that Jordan Rich shot your father because of an old grudge. Didn't you ever wonder why he waited fifteen years?" He looked to see what effect that had. He willed her, needed her, to react.  
  
You lie, Hugo, she thought. Rich's past was too well hidden for you to discover. You resort to lies and that tells me the truth. The truth is you must inflate your importance with lies. And that tells me just how little you believe in yourself, how great your insecurity is.  
  
You cannot see it, Hugo, but I am smiling under this tape. It doesn't matter that you can't see my smile because you know, don't you Hugo? If you have any insight, any ability to 'read' people, you know that I am smiling. You know that I am smiling because you have lost.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Batcave  
  
3:00 AM  
  
  
  
Careful, careful, thought Dick as he slipped the jack into the gap under the dished out section of the steel barrier. It had to be centered just right.  
  
"Okay," he told Batgirl and she started pumping the arm of the jack. The jack was designed to lift the heavily armored batmobile, which lay broken just feet away. It could lift the multi-ton barrier. It would just take awhile. Unfortunately, they didn't have much time.  
  
A metallic groan told them that, instead of lifting of the barrier, the jack was bending the dished out section even further. That changed the angle of the jack to the barrier but maybe... Another groan from the metal and the jack slipped out from under the barrier. Nightwing groaned himself and, as Batgirl lowered the jack a couple of notches, he worked to reposition it. They just needed a few more inches. But time was running out.  
  
  
  
  
  
The Clock Tower  
  
3:02 AM  
  
  
  
Hugo Strange paced around the room, avoiding Barbara's eye.  
  
"You think you're so smart, don't you? You think you're so much better than me," he ranted. "Well, who is tied up and helpless, eh? Tell me that! Which one of us is bound, gagged and helpless? Not me! It's you, you!"  
  
She had won, Barbara thought, and now Hugo Strange would kill her. There was nothing else he could do. His mind games had backfired, his confidence was shaken, he knew he had been beaten. If he could not break a crippled 'flunky' who was bound, gagged and helpless, how could he hope to break the Batman himself? He would not dare face the Batman now. The only course left to him was to kill her and flee into the night.  
  
Unless Dinah arrived in time. She couldn't see the monitor board from where she lay, but she didn't need to. The ultrasound generators would go off as soon as Dinah entered the downstairs hallway. Downstairs it would feel like someone had driven a spike into your brain. Even up here she would feel the vibrations thru the floor. And she didn't. So Dinah hadn't arrived yet. It would take even Black Canary a couple of minutes to fight her way up the stairs and Barbara didn't think she had a couple of minutes.  
  
She regretted that, more for Bruce and Dick than for herself. She knew they would take her death hard but she hoped they would not let it wreck their lives. That would give Hugo a victory he hadn't earned. For herself, she took a vicious pleasure in beating Hugo at his own game. That would have to be enough.  
  
"I'm going to kill you now." Hugo finally looked at her and she could see his defeat in his eyes. "Your friend will find your dead and bloody body, a razor-sharp batarang buried in your throat. What do you think of that?"  
  
A familiar voice answered. "I think you always did talk too much, Strange." 


	5. Chapter 5

Strange Behavior - Chapter Five  
  
All characters in this story are copyright DC Comics and I have used them without permission. I am making no money from this story.  
  
  
  
  
The Clock Tower  
3:04 AM  
  
  
Hugo Strange turned in time to take the right cross on the tip of his chin. He slammed backwards into the wall. Before he could regain his footing, the Batman grabbed him and pulled him erect, until they were face to face.  
  
"What are you doing here, Strange?" the Batman growled, his voice deep and vibrant with menace. "Did you think, let's go torture and murder another defenseless woman? Is that what you thought?"  
  
Abruptly, the Batman rammed his knee into Hugo Strange's groin. "Let's see just how defenseless this woman is."  
  
Ignoring Strange as he gasped and moaned on the floor, he turned to Barbara.  
  
"Don't move," he cautioned, as the razor-sharp batarang sliced thru the duct tape that bound her. He yanked the tape from her mouth.  
  
"Ouch! Batman - Nightwing, Batgirl and Alfred... the Cave..."  
  
He didn't exactly smile, Barbara thought, but for a moment his face was less grim. Then the mask was firmly back in place, but it was enough. She sagged with relief and barely noticed as, without looking, he reached out and shut down the monitor board.  
  
Hugo Strange gasped, "They're dead, Batman ... Dead! ... I killed them! ... If you turn me ... over to the police, everyone... will know who you are." He seemed to regain his confidence at the thought.  
  
The Batman ignored this speech as he righted Barbara's wheelchair and brought it into the room, placing it behind her and setting the brakes to make it easier for her to pull herself up into it. Finally, he handed her the escrima stick she had dropped earlier. Then he turned towards Hugo Strange.  
  
The temperature seemed to drop abruptly. Barbara shivered. Hugo Strange seemed frozen in place.  
  
"Strange, you have killed or tried to kill just about everyone in this world that I love. What makes you think I'm just going to turn you over to the police?"  
  
"The Batman doesn't kill." But Hugo Strange didn't sound quite as confident as before.  
  
"I'm not going to kill you," the Batman replied in a soft voice. "That would be too easy."  
  
Hugo Strange started to sweat.  
  
"You want to be the Batman, Strange? Fine. I'll just shave off that beard." Suddenly, the razor-sharp batarang was in his hand again. The point caressed Strange's throat. He shuddered. "Then I'll drop you in the worst part of Gotham. How long do you think you'll last, Strange? If by some chance, the police find you first, who's going to believe anything you say? A weirdo who dresses up like the Batman and claims he's Hugo Strange, when Strange is safely locked up in Arkham? They may run your fingerprints but I promise you they won't match the prints on file for Hugo Strange. You'll end up in some asylum as 'John Doe'. Not Arkham, you won't rate that high. You'll have no one to talk to, at least no one who pays any attention, except a psychiatrist who comes once a week and spends the time looking at his watch, waiting to go home. You could live for decades like that. Unnamed. Insignificant. Nobody."  
  
Hugo Strange paled.  
  
"But I have a better idea. You're free to go, Strange. You can just walk out of this apartment. I won't stop you. I won't follow you. All you have to do..." The smile on the Batman's face was far more sinister than his grim visage had been. "...is get past one defenseless woman. That's all."  
  
He turned and disappeared into the darkness of the living room.  
  
"Batman!" Dammit, thought Barbara, I'm not going to let him pull that disappearing trick now. She heard Strange get to his feet as she spun her wheelchair around. She tossed the escrima stick over her shoulder, not paying any attention to the crack! as it connected with Hugo's skull, nor the whack! as the back of his head hit the wall behind him, or the crump! as his body slid to the floor. She was too focused on catching the Batman before he could disappear. So focused, in fact, that she almost ran him down when he suddenly materialized in the doorway.  
  
"Finished?" he asked, an almost smile barely touching the corners of his mouth. "Already?"  
  
"You didn't think I'd have any trouble with that little creep?" asked Barbara, insulted.  
  
The corners of his mouth twitched, the equivalent of a belly laugh for the Batman. He said nothing but bent over Hugo Strange. He touched a hypo spray to his neck and Strange relaxed into complete unconsciousness. Then he bound his arms and legs with plastic ties. The whole process took seconds.  
  
"What are you going to do with him?"  
  
"Take him to Arkham. Put him in his cell. I'll take his 'stand-in' to a private sanitarium I know. Someplace where he'll be treated, not warehoused like at Arkham. Strange can talk all he wants. Nobody will listen. After all, they know he's insane."  
  
"How are you going to prove Bruce Wayne is innocent if you do that?"  
  
"I'm not. Bruce Wayne doesn't exist anymore."  
  
Barbara slammed her fist down on the armrest. "How is that fair to Sasha? She is in prison because of you. How can you do that to her?"  
  
Batman hesitated, as if he hadn't thought of that. But that wasn't possible. He was the Batman, he thought of everything.  
  
Barbara's apartment door shattered into a million pieces. Batman automatically swung his cape to protect them from the flying splinters. In the doorway stood Black Canary, uniform torn, hair disheveled, ready to take on all comers.  
  
"Late, as usual," commented Batman dryly.  
  
Dinah looked at Barbara. Her eyes asked, are you all right? She must have gotten the answer she was looking for, for her face changed from looking concerned to looking disgusted.  
  
"Puke gas, Barb. Did you have to use puke gas? The electrified carpet I kinda expected. I mean it's almost a cliché, these days. The ultrasound thingies were a real pain," her hands rubbed her temples, indicating she meant that literally, "but what the heck. It's not supposed to be easy. But why'd you have to use puke gas? I'll never get the smell of it out of my costume."  
  
"Uh, sorry?"  
  
"You should carry a rebreather."  
  
"Well, if it isn't his Battiness. Don't you have some stalactites that need de-guano-fying?"  
  
"I didn't know you two knew each other," Barbara commented in surprise.  
  
"JLA," was Batman's terse response. Well I know you were in the JLA together, thought Barbara. But this sort of banter went beyond what she would have expected from that connection.  
  
"I was the only one he couldn't intimidate. Well, and J'onn, of course."  
  
"She made faces at me during meetings..."  
  
"You spent the whole time scowling. I had to do something."  
  
"...and mooned me once when I was on monitor duty."  
  
"I did not! At least," she grinned, "you can't prove it was me."  
  
"Biometrics," he pronounced with a un-Batman-like satisfaction. "I made precise measurements from the video tape..."   
  
"You have it on tape?" yelped Dinah.  
  
"...and compared them with your medical scans." His face froze, as if he suddenly realized he was enjoying himself.  
  
"You have my medical scans? Those are confidential! Oh wait," she added sarcastically, "I forgot I was talking to Mr. Rules-don't-apply-to-me."  
  
He turned and headed for the balcony.  
  
"Hey!" Dinah called after him, "was it something I said?"  
  
Not now, Dinah, thought Barbara. "Batman, wait!"  
  
He paused, but did not turn around.  
  
"How did you show up just in time to save my life?"  
  
Dinah's sudden intake of breath sounded loud in the silence. Then Batman turned towards Barbara. He looked embarrassed.  
  
"You called me." It took a moment for Barbara to understand.  
  
"You mean you were listening the whole time and didn't respond?"  
  
"I didn't want you to think I was at your beck and call."  
  
"Perish the thought," said Barbara dryly.  
  
"That's awfully petty, even for you," said Dinah indignantly.  
  
"I was headed for the Cave," Batman continued as if he had never been interrupted, "to back up Nightwing and Batgirl when you said, 'Batman, thank goodness, you're here.' I turned around and headed for the Clock Tower."  
  
She had left the com line open, Barbara remembered. Which meant he had heard everything.  
  
"You heard Hugo initiate the self-destruct sequence. Did you override it somehow?"  
  
"Self-destruct?" Dinah asked.  
  
"For the Batcave," Barbara explained impatiently.  
  
Dinah started laughing. "You put a self-destruct mechanism in the Batcave?" Her laughter grew until she was gasping for breath. "How... James Bond... Wayne, Bruce Wayne... agent double-oh bat... license to brood..."  
  
Barbara started to giggle. "I didn't even know there WAS a self-destruct mechanism." Her giggles stopped abruptly at Batman's glare. She suddenly realized Dinah had called him by his real name.  
  
"Oh, chill, Brucie," Dinah retorted. "SHE didn't give you away."  
  
Batman switched his glare to her, with no discernible effect. He finally said, "Contrary to what Strange seems to believe, it isn't a 'self-destruct mechanism'. That's just Alfred's idea of sarcasm. The purpose is to hide the Batcave, not destroy it. The entrances are collapsed. Anyone looking for the Batcave will find rubble-strewn dead-ends, nothing unusual in those cliffs. The computer hard drives and on-site back-ups are wiped clean and other... sensitive... information is destroyed, so if they still manage to find the Batcave they won't learn anything," he shrugged, "beyond what they would already know if they are looking for the Batcave under Wayne Manor. Barbara has back-ups of all the data so nothing is permanently lost."  
  
"Oh," exclaimed Barbara, recognition dawning. She had known about THAT. "I thought..." She stopped, but Batman smiled bitterly at her. It didn't take the World's Greatest Detective to complete her sentence. She had thought he had gone all paranoid and had wired the Batcave with explosives without telling anyone.  
  
"I have no desire to drop Wayne Manor into the Batcave again."  
  
But Barbara wasn't listening. She felt like her mind had been jarred back into operation again for the first time since Batman had appeared. Now it all made sense. He had heard everything Hugo had said. He had heard Hugo Strange describe Vesper's death in loving detail. He had heard Hugo tormenting her. He must have wanted to beat Hugo to within an inch of his life. Instead he had left Hugo to her, to show her in the only way he could that she was not a helpless victim. He couldn't know she had already found her own answer.  
  
"When did you figure out that Hugo Strange was behind everything?"  
  
He turned his head away. Barbara knew with sickening certainty that he hadn't figured it out. Not until Hugo had announced himself. But he should have. He had all the clues Dick had. He hadn't figured it out because he had quit thinking. He was running entirely on emotion and reflexes and probably had been since he held Vesper's dead body in his arms. She tried to understand how that must have felt. She imagined Dick dead in her arms and the desolation that would bring. No wonder he had stopped thinking. She would have wept, but her tears would not help him.  
  
She heard his words once more in her mind. "The only person who can truly defeat you is you. Most of our opponents will... tell us how to take them down, if we pay attention." And Hugo Strange had paid attention, hadn't he? He had seen how carefully Bruce guarded his feelings and had recognized the vulnerability they represented. How had they not seen it? Oh, they talked about Bruce hiding his feelings, but then they turned around and called him cold and unfeeling. But a cold, unfeeling man did not dedicate his life to protecting others, at the cost of his own happiness. Only a man who cared too much. Only a man who cared too much had to hide his feelings so that evil men like Hugo Strange wouldn't use them against him. But if you paid attention, then the very act of hiding them revealed his vulnerability.  
  
They had treated Bruce like an 'iron man' who could withstand anything, who would never break under any strain. Bruce had projected that image because it was what he needed to believe, but they had all bought into the illusion. They had loaded their need to believe on top of his own. But that wasn't all, she realized. They had all, at one time or another, railed at him for putting 'the mission' above the needs of his 'family'. One occasion burned in her mind. Dick had needed to talk to Bruce about their relationship, but Bruce wouldn't stop to talk. The mission was more important, the mission came first. Dick had been furious. The mission, in that case, had been a young boy who had been kidnapped. Bruce had placed rescuing him, probably saving his life, above Dick's need to talk. That was the most egregious case, she thought, but far from the only one. They had all done it. They had all objected when he placed the lives of strangers above their own emotional needs.  
  
Barbara pushed the guilt aside. That would not help Bruce either. What would?   
  
They turned their heads at the whoosh! followed by a thump! as Nightwing landed in the middle of the living room.  
  
"Babs! Are you all..."  
  
He stopped as he felt Batman's scorching glare.  
  
"What part of 'secret identity' do you not understand?"  
  
"What are you..." He took in Black Canary's presence and turned beet red. His eyes slid towards Barbara, then back to the Batman. "Uh, sorry?"  
  
The Batman shouldered Dick aside and pulled out his jump line. Batgirl landed in front of him.  
  
"Back? Good."  
  
"Batgirl!" Barbara shouted, "don't let him leave."  
  
"Move out of the way, Batgirl," Batman growled. Batgirl didn't move. Batman turned, frustrated. He had the strangest code of conduct, Barbara thought. He would shoulder Dick aside, but not Batgirl. She wasn't sure if it was because she was female or young or because Bruce felt responsible for her or because she wasn't family to the same degree as Dick. She was sure it wasn't because she could probably kick his butt. He certainly wouldn't have hesitated if it were Superman.  
  
"Dick, he's still going to give up being Bruce Wayne."  
  
"What? You can't do that!"  
  
"Yes, I can."  
  
"I won't let you!"  
  
"You can't stop me."  
  
"QUIET, EVERYONE!" All heads turned towards Dinah. She looked at Batman.  
  
"You're going to do what?"  
  
"Bruce Wayne has become a liability. He no longer exists."  
  
"You ARE Bruce Wayne."  
  
"No, he's a mask I sometimes wear. This is the real me."  
  
"That's the sort of crap you pulled in the JLA. I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now."  
  
Batman shrugged. "Believe what you want."  
  
"Is this about Vesper Fairchild?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Look, I'm sorry she died, but that's no reason..."  
  
"I felt her heart stop." It was barely a whisper.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I held her in my arms and felt her heart stop. Because of me. That was her only crime: she knew me."  
  
"I don't know all the details..."  
  
"That's right. You don't. So stay out of it."  
  
"...and I know Vesper didn't sign up for that risk, but THESE PEOPLE DID. They know how dangerous our profession is and they chose it anyway. All you're doing is making their lives more difficult and painful than they have to be."  
  
"I can't do anything about that."  
  
"Sure you can! You can drop this nonsense and..."  
  
"You miss the point. Vesper died because I loved her. That madman over there killed her, not for anything she had done or anything she was, but because it would hurt me. I'm sorry if people are hurt by my actions, but at least they are alive to be hurt. Vesper isn't. No one else is going to die because of me. No one."  
  
Barbara spoke gently. "If Bruce Wayne no longer exists, what happens to Thomas and Martha's son? What happens to their legacy? Who mourns their deaths? They gave everything to protect Bruce Wayne. Did they die in vain?"  
  
He was visibly shaken. Then his face froze once more. "I'm leaving." Since he wouldn't shove Batgirl aside, he headed for the front door. He looked more than willing to shoulder Dinah out of the way.  
  
She stepped aside. "If you are that selfish and cowardly, go ahead and leave."  
  
Dinah, thought Barbara despairingly, don't.  
  
"Frankly, I thought better of you."  
  
He stopped and faced her. "If it's selfish and cowardly to want to never bury another loved one..."  
  
"You're taking their right to choose their own lives away from them. They know the risks and they chose to care about you. But you refuse to let them."  
  
"Fine!" Suddenly he was shouting. "Then I'm selfish and cowardly." Dick looked stricken. Barbara felt like weeping.  
  
"No, you're not."  
  
The Batman looked totally dumbstruck. Barbara fought down a smile as she carefully filed the image away in her mind for future enjoyment.  
  
Dinah continued, "You are one of the bravest, most unselfish people I know. You go out every night, without any powers to help you, and risk your life to help complete strangers. Have you ever seen anyone who needed help and NOT stopped to help them?" When he didn't answer, she continued. "Plenty of us do it sometimes, when it's convenient or we feel like it or for the kicks, but you have dedicated your entire life to it. To the point where you no longer have a life outside of that costume. You aren't selfish or cowardly. SO DON'T ACT LIKE YOU ARE."  
  
"Think, Bruce," Barbara added quietly. "You pushed Vesper away and it didn't save her. Hugo was going to kill someone, whatever you did. If it hadn't been her, it would have been someone else. If necessary, he would have used a total stranger.  
  
"Everybody dies, Bruce. So maybe it won't be because a maniac wants to hurt you. Maybe it'll be because you weren't there to provide backup or spot the critical clue. Or maybe it'll be after a long life that's the poorer because you wouldn't be a part of it. Everybody dies; you can't change that. We know the danger and we want you in our lives anyway."  
  
"That's quite something, you know?" Dinah told him. "Nobody wants HIM," she jerked her head at Hugo Strange, "in their lives. So let them in, okay?"  
  
  
Dick stepped forward. "There will always be people in your life, Bruce, and - being who you are - you will care about them. Think about Sasha, Spoiler,..."  
  
Batgirl stepped forward. "Me."  
  
"Yes," Dick laughed, "even Cain's daughter. You care about everyone, Bruce."  
  
Barbara rolled her eyes. Batman glared.  
  
"What? What did I say?"  
  
"I didn't know HER identity," Dinah told him in a stage whisper.  
  
"What? She knows who you are, she knows who I am, but Batgirl -- whose identity is known to James Gordon and half of the former G.C. ex-P.D., not to mention the fact that she practically lives here -- she doesn't know who SHE is?"   
  
Barbara surprised everyone, especially herself, by laughing. It was a loud, happy, joyous sound. "Accept it, Bruce. You are NOT going to end up a bitter old man, all alone in that huge house. That's just not the sort of person you are."  
  
"Don't you understand?" Bruce whispered. "I can't stand the pain any more."  
  
"Nobody can stand it by themselves," Dick told him, "but you don't have to. That's what family is for."  
  
Bruce pushed back his cowl and took deep, shuddering breaths, fighting for control.  
  
"No group hugs," he growled.  
  
Dick's grin looked about to split his face in two. "No group hugs," he affirmed.  
  
"No potluck dinners. I HATED the JLA potlucks"  
  
"Hey," interjected Dinah, "they weren't that bad."  
  
"With Alfred around?" Dick put in. "I can GUARANTEE no potluck dinners."  
  
"And I'm not laughing at your stupid jokes."  
  
"Bruce, you wound me." Dick clasped his hands to his heart. "My jokes are funny."  
  
"Occasionally," Bruce allowed.  
  
"Red, back me up on this."  
  
"No," Barbara replied bluntly. "Most of your jokes ARE stupid."  
  
Batgirl walked up to Bruce. "Better?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, better," he affirmed.  
  
"Good. Lots to do."  
  
She turned to Dinah, pulled off her cowl and put out her hand. "Cass."  
  
"Good to meet you, Cass. I'm Dinah."  
  
"Great," growled Bruce. "Just in case she didn't know who Cain's daughter was, you wanted to make sure she wouldn't pass you by on the street?"  
  
Cass just looked at him. "Part of family now," she replied. Dinah looked taken aback.  
  
"I don't know why she'd WANT to be," Bruce groused.  
  
"Grinch."  
  
"No, that's grouch," Barbara corrected. Cass had watched 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas' too many times last December, she reflected. Then it occurred to her Bruce might not appreciate being called a grouch. She shrugged.  
  
"Now that's settled," put in Black Canary, "what do we do about him?" She pointed at Hugo Strange.  
  
Bruce shrugged. "Barbara will have to call the police. Inconvenient, but there is no way we can keep her out of it, I'm afraid."  
  
"And we prove he murdered Vesper, how?" Barbara asked skeptically. Bruce's face went stony again and she regretted her flippancy, but the problem had to be addressed.  
  
"I have his confession on tape. Everything from 'you remind me of Vesper'."  
  
"The open com line," Barbara realized. But there was no reason to tape Hugo's confession if Bruce didn't intend to clear his name. Maybe a part of him had never wanted to go the 'Lone Avenger' route, she thought. Maybe, subconsciously, he had wanted to be talked out of it. "He knows who we all are," she pointed out.  
  
"I have some samples of the Scarecrow's fear toxin at the Dixon Station complex. If Batgirl can go retrieve a sample," she nodded, put her cowl back on and was gone, "I think we can convince the police that he is insane."  
  
"He IS insane. 'Potency of archetypal power'," Barbara snorted.  
  
"He didn't really say that?" Dinah asked delightedly.  
  
"Let's keep on topic here."  
  
"Yes sir, your Batship, sir." Dinah saluted.  
  
"By the time the fear toxin wears off..." he continued, ignoring Dinah's quip. How quickly things return to normal, Barbara thought. Well, not everything. Dick was virtually quivering with happiness. "...nobody is likely to take any claims Strange makes seriously. The fact that he thinks he's killed Nightwing and Batgirl will help.  
  
"Bruce Wayne was seen to arrive in Santa Prisca, so Hugo will find it difficult to convince the police that Wayne is Batman. When Wayne returns from Santa Prisca, he will be very taken by Strange's story. He will tell anyone who will listen how he is supposed to be Batman."  
  
"Uh, Bruce," asked Dick. "Isn't treating Bruce Wayne and Batman as two separate people how we got into this mess in the first place?"  
  
"Can't be helped. We have to clearly separate the two in the eyes of the public. If I start forgetting who I really am, you can remind me.  
  
"I will give an "I am the Batman" party. I'll dress up in the most garish 'Batman' costume I can find. The guests will be asked to come as their favorite Batman-related character. I'll leave the Grandfather clock open and show the vestibule behind it to anyone interested, telling them it's my Batcave. With the staircase sealed off, it will look like a rather large closet."  
  
"You mean the entrance to the Batcave was behind a...umph," Dinah said as Barbara drove an elbow into her stomach.  
  
"I will tell everyone it was probably built by my grandfather to store his bootleg liquor and how I used to hide in it when playing 'hide and seek' as a child. That should put an end to any serious idea that I really am Batman. It you can't disprove something, ridicule it.  
  
"And, yes, I know it will perpetuate the 'Bruce Wayne as twit' persona but, again, it can't be helped.  
  
"Once the fanfare dies down, we can turn our attention to reopening the Batcave. In the meantime, I can use the alternate sites." He shrugged. "Inconvenient but necessary."  
  
"I think that covers it," Barbara added briskly. "We need to get moving. As soon as Batgirl gets back with the fear toxin, I'll call the police. Canary..." Barbara paused. How were they going to explain all this mess to the police?  
  
"Black Canary saved you," Batman told her. "That's necessary to explain the... path of destruction she left. Besides, you two have been spending a lot of time together. Somebody will have noticed. You two will have to figure out how she knows you and why she stopped by at 3:30 in the morning. That also eliminates any connection between you and the Batman. Nightwing," he turned to Dick, "check for anything that reveals we were here. Particulatly foot prints." He was fully back in Batman mode, Barbara noted. Nightwing nodded and started moving around the room, eyes on the floor.  
  
"Barbara, you surreptitiously taped Hugo's confession." He tossed her the mini-cassette. "I need to find Hugo's lair before the police do, to make sure there is nothing too revealing. It will probably be nearby, likely with a view of your balcony. He was clearly starting to fixate on you as well as the Batman."  
  
Dick looked up, his expression thunderous. Better not leave him alone with Hugo, Barbara thought. Batman headed for the balcony. "Go with him," she urged Dick.  
  
Nightwing took a deep breath and released it, then nodded to her.  
  
"Uh, Dad?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I kinda wrecked the Batmobile."  
  
"Again?"  
  
"Hey, that's not fair. I was sixteen, for crying out loud! You going to hold that against me forever?"  
  
"It's coming out of your allowance," Batman growled as he fired his jump line. He stepped off the balcony and swung away. Nightwing did a forward somersault over the balcony railing. He would wait until the last possible moment before using his line, Barbara knew.  
  
His voice came drifting back to them. "You're not developing a sense of humor, are you? 'Cause if you are, that's just too freaky.  
  
"Hey, if Dinah is family, doesn't that make Roy, like, my cousin?"  
  
Barbara looked at Dinah. They both laughed.  
  
  
  
  
********finis********  
  
  
  
  
Author's note: I have tried as best I can to stay consistent with current continuity up thru Batman #600. According to "JLA Incarnations" Batman and Black Canary did overlap on the JLA. There is, however, absolutely no evidence to corroborate Batman's accusations. There is no evidence of any JLA potlucks either, but it seems plausible for the period corresponding to the first half of Incarnations #6. I doubt the present team would go in for them, however. On the other hand, the Batman's propensity to scowl at JLA meetings is clearly shown in issues #4 & 6 of that series, not to mention any number of issues of JLA.  
  
There is a suggestion in Birds of Prey #40 that Dinah has guessed Bruce is Batman, due to Batman disappearing when Bruce was arrested and all the attention the Batclan is devoting to the case. That is what Dinah meant. Bruce just assumed she meant Dick had given him away. Even Batman can jump to the wrong conclusion, occasionally. Dick's guilt is due to a different and older matter, which HE assumed Bruce had just learned about. You'll have to go back several years to find the incident I am refering to.  
  
The incident concerning Dick, Bruce and the kidnapped boy was in a Titans story from the period when Jason Todd was Robin. I don't know if it is considered "in continuity" any more. The Dixon Station facility is shown in Batman: No Man's Land #0. James Gordon, at least, must have realized that the Batgirl he meets in the latter part of NML is a different person from the one he met earlier in NML. Since the later one doesn't speak and first appears right after Cain's daughter (who doesn't speak) appears then disappears, he must have worked it out. Whether others did as well is unknown. The "Grinch" line I unabashedly stole from "Holiday (Drop) Ins" by Smitty, an excellent story which can be found at the "Potatoverse" website. Maybe the plug will keep her from getting mad at me!  
  
I made some revisions to this chapter based on reviews by Oi! and Meljean Brook. Praise is appreciated but constructive criticism is priceless. 


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